"The current crisis reminds us that, in a free economy, the price of the greatly improved long-term performance that only free economies can provide is an ineradicable economic cycle. As J.M.Keynes pointed out in the 1930s, the cause of the cycle is alternating moods of optimism and pessimism, and its motor is credit, which enables optimism to determine economic activity.
There has been since a massive growth of consumer credit, which amplified the business cycle and prolonged the recent upswing ([...]US consumer indebtedness=139% of disposable income; UK=173%).
The unsurprising consequence of such excess is that individuals and financial institutions must now retrench to rebuild their balance sheets. That is why this is not merely a financial crisis, but an economic crisis. A more prolonged recession than is currently expected is almost inevitable.
What, then, needs to be done? Government and central bank action, around the world, must have two objectives. The first is speedy intervention to prevent self-perpetuating downward spiral, which means protecting depositors at minimal long-term cost to taxpayer. The second is to ensure so far as possible that future booms are less exaggerated."
Nigel Lawson
(Lord Lawson é um conservador britânico, que foi Chancellor of the Exchequer no Governo de Margaret Thatcher)
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